Blog Will Be Continued As Of Monday, June 27, 2011

you may have noticed that there were hiatuses in my blogging continuity over the past month(s). I am not too pleased with that. Apologies. As of Monday, June 27, I will take up a more regular mode of posting. Also, the topics will be of a more complex nature, but I will try to explain things as well as possible.

My aim is still the same, though: to tell facts about OCD as well as is possible (i.e. in a way that matches results and ideas in current research). I hope that one day OCD, and other psychiatric afflictions, will get completely rid of their stigma, and all the myths and misconceptions that surround them.

(Only very recently I heard of a girl who was brave enough to open up about her OCD to someone close to her. That other person laughed out loud, whereas she would have shown empathy and understanding, had the girl told her about any other grave bodily (somatic) disorder (think even: concussion, or a broken finger). This type of reaction not born out of a bad character, but out of ignorance and perhaps also out of prejudice among the population at large. Alas, such attitudes make people with OCD hide in shame, and keep them from visiting a specialist.)

And sad to say: out of my own experience, and from what was told and written to me by many other patients, I know that quite a few clinicians are pretty ignorant about the facts and figures of OCD – and moreover, about its grave impact on the quality of life of people who have it. Wrong diagnoses, and wrong prescriptions are the result.

Which is very, very sad, considering that OCD can literally drive people to desperation, to drug and/or alcohol abuse, and to the edge of life itself.